Points for Improvement

Inconsistencies with support around E4 and above due to harsh approach

Favors style over technique which causes him to be aggressive in his singing

Tends to not open up his throat enough

Resonance is produced rarely

Nasality can be present in his singing

Usually uses falsetto with a lot of pushing and throat tension

Lower range below Bb2 is not used often, under-explored

Registers

Lower register: His lower range mostly remains underused but decently developed. He has enough vocal cord strength in his chest voice muscles to be able to maintain tone throughout his range, although support seems to not be present often below B2.

Mixed register: His mixed voice is mostly quite chest-dominant. He tends to push his chest voice into his mix as he ascends in range and is able to maintain support up to Eb4. Above that he tends to be too throaty and support becomes inconsistent.

Upper register: At times able to use a head voice, mostly within a reasonably lower range. Tends to push too much air pressure into his upper head voice and falsetto range, causing him to sound strained.

Agility

Stylistically Seungyoon tends to draw his influences from a more indie and rock genre direction, as opposed to R&B or other genres that tend to be more run-heavy. Thus, it can be noticed that he tends to avoid doing vocal runs most of the time, with the exceptions being occasional soul songs or slow runs in simple R&B songs. The few times he’s attempted vocal runs, he tends to show a lack of ability to maintain proper breath support and smoothly connect each note in a run. Instead, he tends to become pitchy and sloppy due to an improperly used muscle memory. His main vocal habit is to add a lot of pressure into his vocal cords, which causes them not to be relaxed enough for him to have enough flexibility in his voice, resulting in his voice being somewhat slow. Examples of this include his runs in “Ordinary People“, as well as “그리워해요.”

Overall analysis

Kang Seungyoon initially debuted as soloist after participating in the second season of Superstar K, in 2013. Shortly after, he re-debuted in 2014 as the lead vocalist of WINNER after participating in the survival TV show meant for YG’s next boygroup debut. His style is often very rock-oriented and he tends to show his skills as a vocalist, songwriter and instrumentalist by writing his own songs while accompanying himself playing his guitar. His voice is unique in the sense that while many other main and lead vocalists of idol groups tend to be high tenors, Seungyoon is one of the few baritones currently active as a main or lead vocalist in a male idol group. His voice is thick in tone and generally dark overall, enhanced by his rough approach in his singing.

His lower range can be quite well placed and connected, while maintaining a considerable amount of vocal tone. However most of the time, he tends to only maintain the right amount of breath support and connection of his vocal cords as low as Bb2, while losing the true consistent sense of breath support anywhere below that. His chest voice tends to be quite well placed in his chest with a strong development of his chest voice muscles down to Bb2, where he seems rather comfortable and consistent. Due to stylistic reasons, Seungyoon doesn’t often sing below B2, but the few times he’s done so it’s possible to hear a drop in sound, such as the G2 in “Lonely“, or a drop in support, such as the F#2’s in “Baby Goodnight.” Examples of him showing a good amount of breath support and connection in his lower range include the C#3’s in “Someone Like You“, the B2’s in “같이 걸을까” and the Bb2 in “반달친구.” His lowest note to date is an Eb2 in a low note battle in chest voice, followed by a vocal fry C#2.

The most used and highlighted part of his voice is usually his mixed voice. Since WINNER’s music is written for 2 tenor vocalists and 1 baritone vocalist, it wouldn’t make much sense for their music to be too high or too low for either voice type. Generally sitting on a comfortable range from C3 ~ A4, none of their vocalists usually belt too high or sing too low. Due to this, Seungyoon is never truly able to explore his lower range much but tends to constantly sing at the top of his mixed voice. Most of the time, their songs are written in a mid-range for a tenor and slightly high range for a baritone, where Seungyoon is able to show support and maintain an adequate amount of technique.Up to D4 and Eb4, Seungyoon shows that he can maintain a relaxed approach and even produce resonance occasionally, as heard by the C#4 in “Someone Like You” and D4 in “Baby Baby.” Up to Eb4, Seungyoon is able to maintain enough breath support to outdo his bad habits and still keeps a relaxed enough approach in his throat, as heard by the Eb4’s in “당신께 쓰는 편지” and “시간을 거슬러.”

Above Eb4 he tends to use his throat more and although support may be present on his E4’s, it’s usually overshadowed by him not being completely relaxed and pushing too hard with his throat muscles, as heard by the E4’s in “Someone Like You“, “Lonely“, “그리워해요“, “우리 헤어졌어요” and “Ugly.” Above E4, Seungyoon has never shown the ability to maintain breath support at all and tends to use his throat almost completely. This can be attributed to his stylistic choices by drawing influence from the rock-genre. As a result, instead of using proper breath support while keeping his rock-style approach, he tends to push his mixed voice out with a lot of chest-dominance and throat tension, as heard by the F4’s in “恋しくて (Begin)“, “말할 수 없는 비밀“, “비가 온다“, F#4’s in “This Time“, “Wild & Young“, G4’s in “궤변 광란의 축제“, “0 + 1“, “Baby Baby“, “공허해“, G#4’s in “Je T’aime“, “Someone Like You“, and A4’s in “시간을 거슬러.” This is not to say that he hasn’t shown improvement over the years. Compared to his Superstar K days, Seungyoon has made very good progress in his breathing technique and being able to sing with less pushing around the D4 ~ E4 range, if contrasted to performances like “본능적으로.”

His upper register usually is a very lightly approached and supported head voice, which is usually well transitioned into when singing with less volume. His transitions become less smooth and he may end up switching into a falsetto when he goes from his upper mixed voice with more chestiness up to his upper register. This is caused by him using too much of his thyroarytenoid muscles that when transitioning into a more cricothyroid-dominant cord function, he’s using too heavy of an approach and switching to a much lighter use of his vocal cords becomes too abrupt, thus making him use a thinner airy falsetto instead. However for the most part, he’s able to use his head voice and is able to support up to Bb4, as heard by the E4’s in “우리 헤어졌어요“, G4’s in “Lonely“, the G#4’s in “시간을 거슬러” and the Bb4’s in “Je T’aime.” Above that, he tends to either use falsetto or simply use an overly excessive amount of throat tension and air pressure, causing him to sound tight and strained, as heard by the B4’s in “0 + 1“, C5’s in “Baby Baby“, C#5’s in “Je T’aime“, “아름다운 나비” the Bb5’s in “Tonight.”

In terms of overall technique, Seungyoon has a few issues with overly using his chest voice when singing higher, which can cause him to sound compressed and at times may cause him to go flat in pitch. Most of the time however he possesses quite a good sense of pitch with a good understanding of dynamics in his singing. Although it may become limited when he sings above E4 in his mix, he tends to be able to control his voice well below that. His vibrato also seems to be a bit of a problem, with signs of laryngeal movement as opposed to relying solely on a natural vibrato. This causes his vibrato to become quite fast and forced out.

Overall his technique is actually quite adequate for a young vocalist like him. His sense of technique helps him in his songwriting and his overall understanding of music help him communicate his lyrical content very well with his voice. He is very self aware and sings in a specific genre, which works with his current level of technique. For the future however, he would be quite limited to one genre, while the amount of tension and forcefulness in his mix can be quite damaging to his vocal cords and cause him to have issues if he does not change his approach in singing. For the future, learning to relax and balance out his mix would be the most important step in order to improve his overall technique.

Musicianship

As a songwriter, Seungyoon tends to have a lot of freedom when performing covers of songs. As he’s able to accompany himself with a guitar when singing, he has more control of how to perform the songs he sings. Since he has more control, he’s free to alter the melodies of songs as he pleases and he tends to add his own melodic ideas to many of his acoustic covers. They may not always work effectively, but he tends to find success most of the time with subtle changes in most of his covers. Harmonically speaking, Seungyoon tends to sing with a lot of chest-dominance in mix, so when harmonizing he finds it easier to harmonize when singing in his upper mix, than when singing in his head voice since then he lacks the proper blend if he has to harmonize with his head voice while someone else is belting, as heard in his cover of “Ugly” with Big Bang’s Daesung. Otherwise, his harmonies tend to be quite clean if the vocalists are matching in dynamics, as heard in “Sunday Morning” and “그리워해요.”

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94 thoughts on “WINNER’s Vocal Analysis: Seungyoon”

Congrats on your new domain! And thanks for analysing Winner even though they’re so new and probably don’t have tonnes of material.
I don’t know why YG trains their vocalists to have no support and minimal resonance. I get it, you’re a hip hop focused company, but please.
With Minzy now gone (and not taking Lee Hi or AKMU into account) Winner’s vocalists are the strongest in the company. That’s pretty rough but I hope they can improve at least in the future,
Would you agree that YG’s vocalist have the weakest technique in the Big 3 or would that be JYP?

Honestly what saves JYP is 15&, but their technique isn’t good because of YG’s training system. Aside from them, the best vocalists they have are three above average vocalists, which isn’t bad. YG is slightly below that.

Jyp are quite weak too and their main vocalists are usually average but they have 15& that are their best vocalists. I think yg cares more about uniqueness than vocal techniques but jyp’s songs are very simple and doesnt require that much techniques which is why their main vocalists dont really need to be strong like sm.

I thought he might be above average since he was thought that he might be better than Lee Hi. At first looking at his supported range, he seems to be better than the other idol baritones analysed but then he’s the same with Daesung lol i guess they’re pretty even XD

I almost screeched when I saw these on my Facebook feed. LOL In fact I might have screeched a little..
A narrow supported head voice range? Yas. Eb to G# is, like, 2 notes and a semitone?
Reading this made me realize how rough his style really is. I hope he can find a happy medium in using the style he likes and treating his voice right. The words “pushing” and “throat” were prominent enough to make me nervous for him lmao.
Oh, and hey, he got the rating I guessed for him! My little optimistic heart was holding on to the possibility of AA though.
I’m glad the mystery of Kang Seungyoon was finally unlocked. Thank you so much for your hard work!
I guess it’s Hayi > Daesung > KSY, right?

Most if not all AA vocalists are consistent with resonance in parts of their ranges, the inconsistencies happen at the top of their supported ranges. Seungyoon is inconsistent with resonance, period. Finding moments where he produces resonance is a rare thing to do. For AA vocalists, they produce resonance consistently, just not throughout their whole ranges nor in every note.

Ailee is somewhat stylistic, so is Baek Yerin and so is Naul. Style can be done well if a vocalist can find a happy medium between style and technique. The issue is people have a very superficial understanding of styles.

Range wise, supported range without head voice for baritones falls somewhere within Bb2/B2 and Eb4/E4
Inconsistent with resonance
Even in their supported range strain and tension can be present
Nasality can be present within the voice at times

Ahmin, this is from the criteria page. I really still don’t see how he isn’t AA. I remember you also said before that ”note/note” means one or the other in the criteria area, but not the analysis. So Seungyoon would need either Eb4 or E4. He already has it.

Inconsistent with resonance as in, inconsistent with resonance throughout their mixed voice range. All AA vocalists produce resonance consistently, just not in every note they sing. Seungyoon produced resonance less than 5 times in the videos I found for him. Also he has a lot of throat tension in his mix even within his supported range, more so than an AA vocalist. Seungyoon fits some of the criteria but not enough of it so that’s why he’s in between. Every single AA vocalists produces resonance consistently, just not throughout. Like most of the AA sopranos are consistently able to produce resonance up to B4, but become inconsistent with resonance above that though support is present.

WOW. A new baritone, a new stronger YG idols, and kind of uniqueness again Lead is stronger than Main (daesung, him, minzy). And i’m a bit surprised he’s quite good, even he can use head voice almost up to C5, just a lil’ bit will. Hmmm… can i guess it’s head>low>mix? or quite equal for all? i read up there u said he’s above daesung, why? is it bcause he’s more support in low notes than dae?

I’d need more details because “his vocal cords are not good for singing” is very ambiguous and vague. I think if he means they’re unhealthy then it’s completely attributed to his vocal technique, since he tends to push his voice a lot and has a lot of tension in general when he sings.

Hello~~ Thank you so much for doing these analyses. They are always so interesting! *thumbs up*

If you have the time, I was wondering if you could give some commentary on Seungyoon’s latest Collaboration performance “Tenderness”? Although he was apparently nervous throughout so I’m not sure if it affected his singing…

He was nervous? Was that because he had to sing more in Chinese than in most of his other performances on this show so far? He sounds pretty much fine, I don’t hear anything different from what it’s stated in the analysis. In the higher parts I hear a lot of chestiness and tension, but in this performance he seemed to be less challenged since most of the higher parts were sung by his duet partner compared to earlier performances.

Copy pasting Ahmin3’s answer from OH when I asked before, I think it was originally answered here, on the blog, somewhere. Thank you again, by the way for the answer 🙂

For Sugarman:“Taehyun has support in the beginning, a bit too airy here and there but support is there. He is singing straight through his nose though. 0:30 I can hear now that because Seungyoon uses such a chesty mixed voice, when singing softer he tends to become slightly throatier but his transitions into what sounds like a head voice are actually pretty nice. 0:58 he tends to sing with a somewhat closed throat shaping, but he gets more closed on the Eu vowel. 1:09 he seems to push more with his throat when he sings E4’s but below that, around C#4 he wasn’t pushing too much and support was there. 1:22 all the tension on his shoulders, it’s so visible. F#4 and G#4. 1:25 somewhat nasal mask placed falsetto in this area of his voice, I’m not sure I’d call it a head voice anymore. 2:02 support on D4’s is there, he could be more opened. 2:14 F#4’s and G#4’s all in his throat. 2:21 Taehyun sounds nasal and closed still, he just sounds so shallow. 2:32 that run was so sloppy and he sounded so closed. Nasality carries through to his falsetto. 3:14 oh hey F#5. 3:16 he really seems to struggle with his mix, it’s so tight and pushed even on G#4. It was a nice performance overall but vocally there are more than a few issues that could be addressed.”

For Koishikute (copy pasted from OH):0:30 ish onward, he sounds just of nasal but it’s okay, he was also slightly flat at first. 1:09 that doesn’t sound bad, he sounds fine in the beginning, he’s not as nasal now. 1:14 there was a bit of pushing/tension in that part, it may have been the vowel. He’s doing nicely with holding back the volume in his voice without necessarily closing his throat in order to do that. Interesting to notice the difference between Seungyoon and Taehyun, when Taehyun sings the beginning of verse, the line goes E3 E3 E3 B3 C#4, when Taehyun sings it, he sings it softly but he never transitions, Seungyoon sings the C#4 in falsetto, due to the fact that he has a lower voice, singing softly on C#4 (considering that his mixed voice is quite chest dominant) is hard if you don’t lighten up your mix…a tenor wouldn’t have to because it’s not high enough yet for one to use falsetto. 1:56 ~ 2:01 the placement isn’t actually bad in those notes, I am not really sure how I feel about his support because it feels like he us projecting well and placing his voice in his mask, but he is pushing the sound one with his throat for those E4’s and F4’s. 2:44 that F4 sounds really nasal and closed, I’ve been torn about how I feel about Taehyun around F4. He gets quite closed, Seungyoon is less closed than him and his placement is better. This song isn’t exactly in a challenging range for Taehyun, it is more challenging for Seungyoon but still they’re both doing okay. I wish the sound quality was better for me to be sure about Seungyoon’s tonal quality. Cool guitar solo breakdown lol 4:56 that note was closed, the transition wasn’t bad. Seungyoon on the other hand may be able to produce resonance, which is not something YG vocalists are often able to do …but he is from SuperStar K… Taehyun’s falsetto isn’t bad, but it also gets a bit nasal. 6:12 flat. Ooh is not a good vowel for Seungyoon, there I’m noticing more of a closed sound. 6:29 flat again. 6:45 that was all in his throat, very very throaty, very strained F#4 and G#4 I believe. 6:58 Seungyoon’s falsetto is throatier than Taehyun’s, Taehyun has bad posture. 7:10 ish the E4’s and F4’s, he is going back and forth with those, they sound tight in his throat, 7:16 the D4 had good placement, the vibrato was a bit slow but it doesn’t seem that bad. This was a long song, it felt like I was listening to John Mayer tbh.

Hello, thank you for the analysis. I am a big fan of Winner, and especially their vocal line. I’ve read both Nam Taehyun’s and Kang Seungyoon’s vocal analysis, but I’ve always thought that Taehyun’s technique was slightly better than KSY. Now I know that KSY has a very powerful voice. And I also know that Taehyun doesn’t use his voice, especially middle register very efficiently and can sound very shallow. But if I were to compare both (maybe I’m not supposed to compare the two but I do anyway) for KSY I feel like he puts too much power to his voice and sometimes he needs to soften it (also it sounds a bit nasal, and also sometimes I just feel like he’s not quite singing but yelling the notes out) which he doesn’t and this makes me think that maybe he doesn’t have much control on his voice so he is not able to do so. As for Taehyun, eventhough he does not support his voice properly at times, I feel like, at least he can make it fit the song (both solo and as a group) and (if not actually having control over his voice) make it look like he can control his voice (better than KSY). So what is your opinion on this, is Taehyun’s technique really (a bit) better than KSY, or am I just biased?
(P.S. neither a native Eng. speaker nor an expert on music, sorry for any possible inconveniences.)

Well considering their ratings my answer is to be expected. I do agree that Seungyoon is a rough vocalist and kind shouts and lacks control, but Taehyun is his polar opposite who even when he tries to yell, he has no power at all. The difference is support, Seungyoon is constantly singing in the same range as Taehyun and shouting in that range, which for a baritone is considered high but for a tenor, it’s a lot less challenging .. which is what gives off the impression that Taehyun has better control, because within that range he does, but if Seungyoon were to sing the same song as Taehyun but in the right key for his voice type, he would show much better control of dynamics and support than Taehyun. Not to mention Taehyun does shout too, he just lacks volume to do it loudly, and he’s nasal 95% of the time when he sings, as opposed to Seungyoon. So I just say, no, Taehyun’s technique is not slightly better nor even on match with Seungyoon’s. Your English is perfectly fine btw. ^ ^

So WINNER just came back with two new songs after (forever) just over a year, and I was wondering if you could listen to and analyse this video of them performing live? I was a bit worried that they might have regressed a bit but Seungyoon sounds pretty much the same to me, then again what do I know. Has Jinwoo improved any, considering that he’s now technically the other main vocalist? Both of the rappers sing in Fool but they’re rappers so it’d probably be unfair to ask about them and also there’s no live version of that yet so… https://youtu.be/DsqGV-SC2Bo

Oh thank you, and no, if Seungyoon’s stayed the same than this analysis still explains everything about his technique in a lot of detail and I think you said before that Jinwoo is a weak vocalist so I’m guessing he doesn’t support at all? Actually, one more thing. I found a live performance of Fool (the more vocal oriented of their title tracks) and I was wondering if, judging by their singing at the beginning, both of WINNER’s rappers are baritones? So would that make WINNER a group with 3 baritones 1 tenor? I won’t ask about their technique because like I said, they’re rappers and anyway, if their lead vocalist is weak I don’t have any hope for the rappers lol. https://youtu.be/LX2SCiqWPGE thank you so much!!

Yes and I still hear that from Jinwoo, no support at all. Actually I forgot so I watched the video and the first rapper is a baritone but I think the second one is a tenor. So it’s two tenors and two baritones in the group.

Unfortunately the first video was removed. I don’t hear anything new in the first video, it’s a relatively narrow range, lots of falsetto going on. It’s a very baritone range, if the other is Junggigo it’s kind of boring for him. 1:41 a bit of throat on the F4, but not that bad. 2:35 F4 G4 Ab4 and back down to F4, all throaty. So yes I’d say same old problems indeed. 3:03 really throaty. 3:10 A4, but that’s pretty high.

I think he can keep exploring this music, he’s making it his own and that’s what matters to me when it comes to one’s artistry.

FINALLY! Omg I’ve been waiting for this. I mean I knew F#2 was not his lowest note. 43:29 he is already at F#2 and he’s doing just fine in terms of comfort. 43:41 Eb2 43:43 C#2 but this is vocal fry now, it’s not chest voice anymore. Thank you for this! I’ll update it right away!

Yeah, the most I like from Seungyoon is whatever song he sing will becomes his own. Even technically isn’t better but somehow his version leaves more impression and quite strong to remember after the show.
So, can u explain why it’s quite a lot happen when a singer like Seungyoon becomes more “famous” or getting more attention than his rival? Even when he participated on SSK2 becomes like that too. People getting expose many things about him, especially the way he sing and his style of singing.

I did not rate her as anything because she hasn’t been analyzed. It’s unfortunate and I completely am against what fans do. I’m sorry dear this is a website in Vietnamese and I can’t understand how to make the video show up because it doesn’t and I have no idea if you’re trying to link a performance from Rosé or Kang Seungyoon, but why don’t you try to find a youtube link for me next time? Even if it’s not the full performance.

“This song isn’t Brazilian, it has nothing to do with Carnival, I don’t get why they had those dancers in the back.. Oh it’s Rose! I was strangely impressed with her English, it was very native sounding. He is very throaty throughout, I wouldn’t say he is singing better than she is. If anything, she is doing better because the range is narrow and kind of low for her, so she is not really straining. She only went up to A4, so although there was nasality and a bit of tension, she didn’t strain. He was straining, so in this particular song she did better than he did.” Idk why I was impressed by her English like she isn’t a native speaker of it. lol

0:14 ~ 0:22 A3’s and G3’s, her vocal cords did not connect properly at any point during this portion of the verse. All I heard was a lot of airiness, where the sound was really unsupported due to the lack of proper stretch of her vocal cords. 0:23 D4 here she starts to actually use her vocal cords to connect her sound more. 0:24 ~ 0:27 F3’s as well, no support. 0:33 E4’s, now the sound is a lot better produced. 0:51 A4’s, she lacks openness and her throat isn’t fully relaxed. 0:58 she still sounds fairly nasal. 1:05 1:08 Bb4’s she doesn’t have proper support here at all. 1:13 this A4 was her strongest attempt at actually supporting her voice in her mixed voice. She was still somewhat throaty and her vibrato is really wobbly, but this is her least squeezed/nasal A4 I’ve heard so far from many performances. 1:28 falsetto, adequate pitch though the transition lacked smoothness. 1:30 quick mixed C5, followed by a tight Bb4. I wouldn’t say A4’s are fully supported for her but they’re the limit of where she is able to vocalize without as much tension, Bb4 and anywhere above that she starts to become fairly throaty. Due to her support not being very strong, her vibrato is very shaky and that’s because of the tension in her throat as well as the unsteady airflow in her singing. Also FYI I listened to the full video just to make sure I didn’t miss anything but the rest of the song is basically the same technically. I think Rosé’s bad vocal habits with her stylistic choices are too strongly ingrained in her singing, so even when she attempts to sing a song like this that requires actual technique, it’s possible to hear a struggle to get away from her usual style. She sounds really like she’s having a hard time around the A4 ~ C5 range, which for any soprano with some basis of technique should not be a problem. This does show us the extent of her technical ability.

Basically I’m a rock fans so of course Seungyoon gets my attention among members. While I like hiphop too but I like Mino’s style of hiphop than kpop hiphop idol do.
Seungyoon and Mino are member that I like the most. Their style of performance and their voice is very quite give big impression to me as a listener. But yeah I should be honest that the most “irritating” for Seungyoon is when he makes a loud voice. It’s just doesn’t make sense with the style of W’s song. Mostly, for another song too but for some songs I like it the he sing for an example just like u mention above, his performance for Adele’s is quite good to listen but not my favorites. It’s bc some part sounds amazing sometimes not match and even sometimes little bit off but still good. I don’t know how to explain it well.
I think Seungyoon’s voice will be very fit on grunge hardcore rock style. Fortunately that he’s not smoking and not much drink an alcohol bc I’ve my friends that their voice like getting worse and worse than before bc their habit as an alcohol fans. Yeah becomes “sexy” but still unhealthy n somehow like frustrating voice??!
From any weaknesses that Seungyoon has I think the most problem that he should solve it sooner is how to handle his emotion while singing. For me he’s not can’t control his note but it’s way more he can’t control his own power just like how hard he control his emotion on stage. I thinm Seungyoon itself realize that problem. Maybe yeah YG’s system make it not happened. But what I like it more for Seungyoon is how be can sing along gives support voice for others and make it like a good harmony.
Besides that, I found it that Seungyoon who is basically grown up with rock style if music had a lot more concern about the beat if I should compare to Taehyun when actually Taehyun is best when talk about r&b style.
So, can u tell the main point of the different between how to sing r&b song with rock. For an example, Michael Bolton is the original debut as a hardcore rock style but he’s best selling album as a white blues and soul singer. Can u explain it more about that? My mother is a huge fan of him so I know a lot of his song.

I just have one question for this particular analysis. In the second paragraph on Seungyoon’s overall analysis, the last sentence reads, “His lowest note to date is an Eb2 in a low note battle in chest voice, followed by a vocal fry C#2.” Wouldn’t that make Seungyoon’s lowest note C#2 and his overall vocal range 3 octaves, 5 notes, and 1 semitone?

Thank you! I am a singer too, not professionally though; I only sing at church. 😀 I love how informative your site is. I’m learning a lot, it’s amazing. 🙂

I love Seungyoon. I really think his voice is distinct and powerful, though I sometimes worry for his throat when he sings too loudly. I especially love it when he sings in falsetto. Nevertheless, I think he’s one of the best KPop vocalists and he’s got a lot of potential to be better. I read somewhere that he likes searching comments about him online. I hope he’ll get to see this site and read your analysis. It would be very helpful to him.

Hi! I just found out about your site (came here from youtube actually) and the analyses are so great. It’s really interesting to see this sort of commentary, since while I enjoy good vocal performances a lot, oftentimes I can only pick out the voices that sound more ‘pleasing’ without really being able to explain how or why, and it’s awesome to be able to see things a bit more from a technical perspective.
That said, and I don’t know if you’re still checking out full performances, but if you do, what do you think about Seungyoon’s recent performance of With Love (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3dgW0VE2Y8)? Is there any improvement at all, especially in the parts that you said would be harmful in the long term (tension and forcefulness I think)? I actually haven’t known Winner for that long, so while I really like Seungyoon’s voice, it’s all blending together for me timeline-wise and I can’t form an opinion on his performances through time haha. I know that he’s the main composer for his group and as such probably has at least some control over the style and musicianship of their stuff, and I like Winner’s music in general, so I’m hoping to see some signs that he’s still trying to improve in term of technique and such.
Thanks a lot, and I hope that wasn’t too confusing. I’m usually pretty confident in my handle of English, but it’s getting late and I’m trying to say too many things at once lol.

I’m so so sorry dear but these videos tend to be blocked for me here in Korea, so I can’t watch. ㅠㅜ I’m so thankful for your comment, it was left in the spam folder so I only saw it now. I’m super sorry about that and your English is pretty good lol So there’s no reason to fear you’re confusing. You’re perfectly clear.

Hi! (I have no idea if my last comment hasn’t been approved or wordpress just messed it up by forcing me to sign in and defaulting back to the main page, which is more likely). Anyway, thank you so much for these analyses! I’ve only gotten back into K-pop, and WINNER specifically, recently, and I can’t believe there’s this kind of detailed analysis out there for so many vocalists in the industry. I’ve always enjoyed ‘good’ vocals, but I could never really explain why I prefer some performances over others, and I know reading this stuff is just the beginning but it’s honestly such a revelation (for example I was absolutely blown away by Seungyoon’s cover of Someone Like Me when I first heard it, but when I go back to it now and pay attention I can actually hear parts that could have been better, which is just… wow).

Anyway, I’m coming back here because Yoon mentioned in his latest V-live that he was interested in musicals, and actually took some lessons for that type of singing. He actually admitted that it took very different skills from singing as a K-pop idol, and that it hurt his throat muscle probably because he wasn’t used to using it that way. Now, I don’t know if the kind of lessons he mentioned were proper lessons on vocal techniques, or when exactly he did that, but if you are still listening to full live performances, could you give it a try and see if he has had any improvement? I think his latest live solo is the cover of With Love earlier this year (https://youtu.be/H3dgW0VE2Y8), and there’s also a song he sang on Lee Hongki’s radio show April last year (https://youtu.be/ITVSJ7eETBc). There’s probably way more live singing in between (he did a whole bunch of spontaneous on-the-spot covers for a Winnerday V-live last month, and I think there’s a twitter thread or something on those) but these are the two that immediately came to mind.

Again, thank you so much for doing these analyses, I enjoyed them a lot!